Posts from the Carroll Gardens Category

A dense network of stations is what makes bike-share work so well in these Brooklyn neighborhoods.

Last night’s Brooklyn Community Board 6 bike-share forum lacked the fireworks of previous meetings — no physical threats this time. While the tone was civil, the demands from the anti-bike-share crowd weren’t exactly reasonable.

Opponents said they would be fine with the bike-share stations if they didn’t occupy curb space that previously served as free car storage. They suggested the docks be moved onto sidewalks and that the station density be cut in half. But sidewalks in Park Slope and Carroll Gardens don’t have room for bike-share stations, and reducing station density would ruin the usefulness of the bike-share system. Bike-share only works well when you don’t have to walk more than a couple of minutes to reach a station.

With the room at capacity, Council Member Brad Lander live streamed the meeting for people stuck outside. The entire one-hour, 45-minute video (which amazingly does not capture the entire meeting) is available on Lander’s Facebook page. Here are the highlights:

The new bike-share stations in Brooklyn south of Atlantic Avenue are getting a lot more use than your average free on-street parking space, according to recent Citi Bike data compiled by Carroll Gardens resident Viktor Geller [PDF]. Geller addressed the report to Brooklyn Community Board 6, which is holding a hearing on Thursday in response to complaints about bike-share stations replacing curbside car parking.

Stations in some neighborhoods are used more intensely than others. In Park Slope, it’s typical for two or three bike-share trips to begin or end at each dock each day. In Red Hook, the average is lower — more like one bike-share “event” at each dock per day. But even so, since each car parking space is equivalent to about eight bike-share docks, that means about eight bike-share trips either begin or end each day in the space one car would occupy — and that’s in the area with the least amount of use.

With 62 stations covering the 3.1 square miles of Brooklyn Community Board 6 — which includes Red Hook, Park Slope, and everything in between — the station density works out to 20 per square mile. As Citi Bike expands into Upper Manhattan, western Queens, and more of Brooklyn by 2017, these are the station densities New Yorkers can expect in the absence of a new strategy from DOT and/or Motivate.

DOT officials told the CB 6 committee that more stations can be added after the initial rollout. But it could be a long time before those gaps get filled in. When the current round of expansion wraps up in 2017, there will be a lot of ground to cover with infill stations plus huge pressure to keep expanding outward.

Ironically, the one thing Citi Bike had going for it consistently from the very beginning — a convenient network where a station was always a short walk away — is deteriorating just as everything else comes together. Citi Bike is finally on the rebound thanks to a thorough overhaul of its equipment and software. How long will the good times last if every expansion fails to deliver the convenience bike-share users have come to expect?

That Phase II expansion looks like it will start this summer. Image: Citi Bike

It looks like some parts of Manhattan north of 59th Street could be getting Citi Bike sooner than previously expected.

At a town hall hosted by Council Member Helen Rosenthal last week, DOT Manhattan Borough Commissioner Margaret Forgione said Citi Bike would expand to 86th Street by August or September, and to 110th Street “probably in March,” reports West Side Rag. Citi Bike had previously announced its intent to extend the service area to about 130th Street by the end of 2017. Last week’s meeting revealed the timetable for phasing in that expansion.

Manhattanites will have a chance to look over the final bike-share station map starting this week, following public meetings earlier this year. The Community Board 8 transportation committee, which covers the Upper East Side, is meeting Wednesday at 6:30 p.m. The CB 7 transportation committee, covering the Upper West Side, is scheduled to meet next Tuesday, May 12, at 7 p.m.

Expansion in Brooklyn — part of Citi Bike’s plan to grow from 6,000-bike system to 12,000 bikes — is set to come in phases, too, though there is no specific timetable yet.

New stations in Bed-Stuy, Greenpoint, and Williamsburg are expected to come online first, by the end of this year. DNAinfo reported last week that DOT staff say the first significant group of stations south of Atlantic Avenue will be added west of Fourth Avenue, before covering Park Slope, Prospect Heights, and parts of Crown Heights and Prospect Lefferts Gardens.

Reader Keith Williams, who blogs at The Weekly Nabe, recently got a few shots of the brand new contraflow bike lane in progress on Union Street. This project will add a sorely needed westbound bike connection across the Gowanus Canal — part of a route that jogs from Degraw, down to Union, then back up to Sackett [PDF].

Two, I believe this is a first for NYC — a contraflow bike lane separated from opposing traffic with a dashed double-yellow stripe. Other contraflow lanes, like the one on Union Square North, have more separation from traffic, but there’s not always enough room for that. Bike lanes like the new one on Union work in other cities and promise to make the city’s bike design toolkit more flexible.

For a while, it seems, City Council Member Steve Levin was the only person in the 76th Precinct with a radar gun -- the local police didn't have one until last week. Photo: Elizabeth Graham/Brooklyn Paper

Here’s how unconcerned the New York Police Department is with deadly traffic violations: For at least a month, and possibly longer, reports DNAinfo, Brooklyn’s 76th Precinct went without a radar gun.

Perhaps due to said lack of a radar gun, the 76th Precinct issued almost no speeding tickets in 2012 until this month: all of five from January through April [PDF]. In that time, over 60 percent of all moving violations the precinct issued were for just two violations, cell phone and seat belt use.

After acquiring a new radar gun, the precinct issued eight speeding tickets on Hicks Street in a single day last week, according to DNAinfo, more than doubling their previous total.

By going without a radar gun, the 76th Precinct couldn’t perform the essential task of keeping its citizens safe. Speed kills. According to the Department of Transportation, a pedestrian struck by a car moving 40 miles per hour has a 70 percent chance of dying. A pedestrian struck by a car driving the city speed limit of 30 miles per hour has an 80 percent chance of survival.

Just one month ago, 5-year-old Timothy Keith was killed by a cab driver in the 76th Precinct, on Hicks Street. Keith, who is deaf, ran into the street. The driver said he couldn’t stop in time, and no charges were filed against him.

It’s a good thing that the public can use radar guns, even when the police don’t. In March, City Council Member Steve Levin clocked 88 percent of drivers on Atlantic Avenue exceeding the speed limit. The westernmost section of Atlantic, near the BQE, is in the 76th precinct.

If it takes a tragedy and community pressure for precincts to even bother to buy a radar gun, much less to make speeding a priority, it speaks volumes to the NYPD’s prioritization of traffic safety. The unwillingness of the police to ticket speeding drivers is as strong an argument one can make for the necessity of using automated cameras — unavailable in NYC until Albany passes the enabling legislation — to catch dangerous speeders.

Reader Jeremy Charette sends this shot from the corner of Smith Street and Sackett Street in Brooklyn, where a crew was installing what I believe to be a genuine first for NYC: on-street bike parking.

Eight bike racks are getting bolted into the blacktop in what’s currently a no-standing zone. In addition to the added convenience of the bike parking, anchoring the racks in the pavement will keep the sidewalk uncluttered and prevent illegally idling and/or parked cars from obscuring sightlines at the intersection.

The safety dividend should be significant, Jeremy writes:

Since I moved in seven years ago, I’ve seen countless car accidents at the corner of Smith and Sackett in Brooklyn. Problem is, drivers coming from Sackett Street can’t see around parked cars on the Southeast corner of the intersection, making it a blind corner. Cars tend to roll through the stop sign on Sackett Street, and at least 1 or 2 a year get t-boned by vehicles coming down Smith Street.

This year they finally put up a “no standing” sign for the two spots before the corner, but cars and trucks STILL park there!

I came out this morning to find this! They’ve painted the no parking zone, put up a curb, and are installing bike racks!

Police officers talk to the van driver who killed a pedestrian on Columbia Street this morning. Photo: Georgia Kral/Patch.

A van driver hit and killed a woman in her 50s as she crossed Columbia Street at around 7:40 this morning, according to an article in the Carroll Gardens Patch. The crash took place near the intersection of Columbia and Summit Street.

The driver stayed at the scene, and while police are still investigating the crash, a spokesperson said they don’t believe any criminality was involved.

Area residents told the Patch that the street is particularly dangerous, with drivers speeding through on their way to the BQE or IKEA. While the DOT installed a traffic calming bike lane on Columbia Street further south in Red Hook, it does not extend north to Summit Street.

The Carroll Gardens Patch reports that a group of about a dozen residents outlined an agenda last night that primarily focuses on improvements in street safety.

The first task is to look into installing red light cameras, leading pedestrian intervals … and pedestrian countdowns on Atlantic Avenue.

The group also voted to look into installing speed cameras in the neighborhood.

In addition, the task force is interested in bringing bike-share to Boerum Hill, as well as 20 mph zones.

“It was a really positive, productive, candid discussion,” says Juan Martinez, general counsel for Transportation Alternatives. “The council member’s constituents have a sophisticated understanding of how to make our streets safer, and it’s great to see that [Levin] is responding to it.”

Martinez points out that Levin is a co-sponsor of Int. 370-A, the Saving Lives Through Better Information Bill, which would require the city to publicize data on traffic collisions online. “Right now, residents know where the dangerous intersections are, they know that street signals need to be re-timed on Atlantic Avenue so drivers don’t behave like it’s a freeway. But without data, residents can’t quantify the problem.” Stepping up traffic enforcement is another item on the task force to-do list.

Co-chair and Levin staffer Hope Reichbach intends task force discussions to serve as the means, not the ends. “It’s frustrating for people because you hear about something and it never seems to go anywhere,” she said Wednesday. “So this forum to me, I want to go over what anyone thinks, what comes to mind to people, and then [move to] the next step.”

The BQE trench divides a neighborhood in two, spewing noise and air pollution. Photo: NYCEDC [PDF]

Between 1950 and 1964, Robert Moses gouged a path across two boroughs to build the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway. In Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens, the BQE slices through the urban fabric in the form of a below-grade trench, which has given many residents of those neighborhoods hope of covering that section of highway. As more people have moved to the west side of the ditch, the pressure to do something has mounted, but the BQE trench won't get capped any time soon.

Before the BQE trench was built, the neighborhood had a fully connected street grid. Image: NYCEDC

The damage inflicted by the highway on residents' ears and lungs, however, could still be lessened, and some of the lost street connections can be restored. Right now, locals put up with traffic noise as high as 76 decibels --
at 80, you're subject to long-term hearing loss -- and dangerously elevated
levels of asthma-causing particulate pollution. Their neighborhood is effectively split in two. A study sponsored by Congresswoman Nydia Velazquez, who secured
$300,000 in federal funds, offers a few partial solutions to "fix the ditch."

The project team developing the study held its first community planning session last week, and the Brooklyn Eagle reports that improved bike-ped connections across the highway, noise-reducing walls, and environmental remediation measures are the favored changes. (This is a separate project from the reconstruction of the BQE in downtown Brooklyn, which could have major implications for the local and regional transportation system.)

The NYC Economic Development Corporation is leading the study, in partnership with NYCDOT and a host of consulting firms. The goal for now is to produce a plan that can be shopped around for additional funding. After two more community meetings, the lead planners will put out a
conceptual design and engineering report in July. In the fall, they'll issue three alternative plans for the trench. The money isn't in place yet for the redesign itself.

Neither is funding available for capping the trench, which could create new real estate for public space or private development. Seattle famously decked over part of I-5 to create Freeway Park, and Los Angeles is considering doing something similar where the 101 Freeway divides downtown. Though the Eagle reported that many residents near the BQE trench still hold out hope for such a bold scenario, planners don't expect to have access to the kind of money needed for more than incremental changes.